Draft Hillary.
There is a grassroots effort to draft Hillary Rodham Clinton for President. (*) They have an online petition. (†)
My impression of her is that she would fight the War on Terrorism fervently. (‡) She supported the Iraq resolution. Her post-war remarks have been moderate, I believe. She represents New York state, and has a rapport with New York City. Furthermore, the wild card is that Chelsea Clinton was a few blocks away from the WTC at the time of the 9/11 attacks. That might mean something or not. Finally, HRC is a strong person who does not easily back down. She has spine.
Update: Michael J. Totten links. (§)
November 11th, 2003 at 14:50
Not that I am stalking you but you wrote, "My impression of her is that she would fight the War on Terrorism fervently." and in the next sentence you write, "She supported the Iraq resolution." I would argue that Bush has diluted the war on terrorism by transferring resources to a nonexistent threat, Iraq. Remember, we have 105K soldiers in Iraq now and no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Those soldiers, money, weapons, intelligence, etc could have easily been used to fight real threats, not contrived threats. HRC’s vote for the Iraq resolutions was cold, calculated politics. She did not vote on principal just like Kerry. By the way are you in High School or something?
November 11th, 2003 at 15:33
Interesting, but we’ve already found a lot of WMD capability in Iraq, and any existing chemical or biological weapons could have been moved to another country, or even still be concealed. It’s a large country. Above all, however, Iraq could have possibly obtained a nuclear warhead on the black market. That is an important point.
Where then are the real threats that our soldiers need to fight? You seem to be taking the Kucinichian position of withdrawal. How would you deal with the horrific aftermath of "Saddam and Al Qaeda have defeated the superpower of the world?"
After 9/11, we were forced into a strategic reassessment. We could continue our hegemony in the usual manner, and allow the worst tyrants like Saddam to remain in power. Alternatively, we could change policies in an effort to use our hegemony in a just manner. We have wisely chosen to change. The old policy was not working. Those who want to return to the broken policies of the past are paleoliberals.
November 11th, 2003 at 16:23
Andrew,
I am a scientist; specifically I work in the field of fermentation of antibiotics and other biologicals. In the many years that I spent studying science I have become familiar with the concepts of weaponization. The idea of going to war over possible weapon capabilities is ludicrous. I work in a chemistry department where we have teaching labs. Using Bush’s definition of capabilities the University is capable building weapons of mass destruction. Hell every country in the world has the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. Using your logic we should invade them all.
Now let us examine what they found. The discovery of several centrifuge parts in a dude’s rose garden that had been buried for twelve years is not a capability. It is like finding a carburetor buried in your back yard and saying you discovered a car. The discovery of a vial of botulism is not a weapons program. It takes a monstrous effort to move between this and actual weapons. Besides, they found it in a dude’s freezer for Gods sake. It had been there for years. Do you realize how they even got a hold of this? The Reagan administration allowed the American Type Culture Collection to sell it to them.
Now lets talk about nukes. Every country in world has the possibility of purchasing a nuclear weapon on the Black market. Do we invade them all? There are lots of other bad dictators out there like crazy Kim Il-Jong, who by the way is making nuclear weapons.
I said nothing about withdrawal, I guess I would put it like this, you break it, you buy it. I do propose that we get rid of those that broke the fucking thing.
Oh yeah, after 9/11 we were forced into a security reassesment, we were fighting STATELESS terrorists, let me repeat that. We were fighting STATELESS terrorists. What I am advocating is the removal of these terrorists with every resource we have. What Bush did was go after straw man, and that is inexcusable under the current security situation,
November 11th, 2003 at 20:26
Post?9/11, we were fighting terrorist-supporting states. For example, Afghanistan.
My threshold for invasion of Iraq was a combination of the following factors: a tyrannical regime that threatens its neighbors and is not amenable to reform, a regime that supports terrorism, a regime that intends to obtain nuclear weapons and has the means to obtain them, a regime that has WMD or WMD capabilities, and a regime that threatens US national interests. Iraq fits. Other nations do not. Iran is coming close. North Korea is a special case because an invasion of that country would be costly to our allies, especially to South Korea and its people.
November 11th, 2003 at 20:35
Dear andrew Hagen:
It seems that sometime in the last year, the litmus test of being "strong on defence" has become being in favor of the invasion of Iraq. This is a dangerously naive simplification of a very large philosophical point. You may recall that people as disparate as George Bush Sr and the US Army High command were against the invasion as it took place. It is hardly an "antiwar" stance. I strongly recommend you read the normative essays on "Just War" posted in February at the US Air Force Academy.
In short, the serious opponents of this war believed that
(1) The WMD threat was vastly overhyped. (Scott Ritter, Joe Wilson, etc.)
(2) Some of the criteria for the "Just War Theory" were very weakly satisfied, at best.
(3) The neocon rules of engagement as written in Bush’s 2002 national security policy document were a recipe for endless war.
Until these issues were seriously addressed, we felt that getting involved in a messy war of liberation could only lead to needless division and loss of focus.
In short, the emotional responses that are elicited by criticism of the current "War On Terror" policy have made serious rational discussion of the problem almost impossible.
Your recent post on "Paleoliberals" is a perfect case in point.
November 13th, 2003 at 12:36
Of course, it would be a fabrication to claim that George H. W. Bush or that the "US Army High command" were against the liberation of Iraq.
It is difficult to overestimate the lethal potentiality of a nuclear bomb.
In my view, technological change has made necessary the imposition of new rules of international law, and new criteria with which to govern engagement in a just war. I have attempted to explicate what in my opinion the reforms should be, both in this thread and in other articles posted to this site.
Finally, I have indeed attempted to promote rational discussion.
November 13th, 2003 at 14:41
Ah, some progress.
First, reading GHWB’s own book would strongly suggest that he was not particularly keen for this war. Many of his statements in paid speeches prior to the war would seem to back this up.
Second, if indeed Saddam had been in possession of nuclear weapons, those weapons would now belong to genuinely rogue elements, rather than a "rogue state", which despite its perversions, weas still a state. I understand that military men prefer to deal with states rather than terrorists, because states generally have known home addresses.
In any case, there was plenty of evidence at the time of the invasion that Saddam was hardly a nuclear threat.
I am not suggesting that the US needed to continue to support Saddam in power. In fact, targetting saddam for elimination and replacement by his incompetent sons would have ensured a traditional coup, and Saddam’s replacement by an Iraqi Gorbachev, or at worst a Kruschev.
In any case, in a stuggle for the hearts and minds of 1/5th the world population, a side battle against a socialist regime seems to me to be an unnecessary distraction.
I would have preferred to continue engagement with liberal forces in Iran, guaranteeing them freedom of action if they were to undertake a peaceful revolution. At this point, I suspect that the Iranian army would support liberalization, if they believed that the country would remain stable during the event.
A free Iran, with it’s economic strength, cultural vitality, and reasonably coherent population, would be a powerful local voice for reform in the Middle East. Of course, this would mean that the US would have to be prepared to act as a more equal partner, rather than a hegemon. But I don’t consider that necessarily a bad thing.
November 13th, 2003 at 14:45
One final observation. I was against invading Iraq, because the recent history of political rebellion has been of successful, peaceful, revolution from within. It is a trend I would like to see continue.
Now that we have invaded Iraq, I don’t think we should simply cut and run. But I also think that Bush’s statements about staying in Iraq have been strategically counterproductive. If we define victory by staying long-term in Iraq, we have ensured our own a defeat. On this issue, the interests of the US and the Iraqi insurgents are in narrow agreement: we both want the US out of Iraq.
November 13th, 2003 at 15:21
This is a troublesome sentence:
"In fact, targetting saddam for elimination and replacement by his incompetent sons would have ensured a traditional coup, and Saddam’s replacement by an Iraqi Gorbachev, or at worst a Kruschev."
You seem to believe that the American secret service is nearly omnipotent. They simply are not able to engage in that level of fine manipulation.
Our disagreement on Iraq hinges on Saddam’s access to a nuke. He did not have a nuke at the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That is why we invaded when we did. It was to prevent him from getting one.
November 13th, 2003 at 15:50
OK. This is a reasonable point on which to base an argument. But you are demanding an impossibly high burden of proof on your opponents: proof that Saddam not only did not have nuclear weapons, but that he would never get them. Taken to its logical conclusion, this policy is Fortress America.
This is a troublesome paragraph:
Our disagreement on Iraq hinges on Saddam’s access to a nuke. He did not have a nuke at the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That is why we invaded when we did.
I am not saying that under some conditions, we should not intervene militarily to prevent a country from becoming a nuclear power. I am asking that you define a statement of policy by which such a decision can be reliably taken. In such a situation the burden of proof cannot rest entirely upon the accused.
November 13th, 2003 at 21:57
I’m not requiring any standard of proof of my opponents, P Mac. I am taking note that the very real possibility that Saddam could have in the future obtained nuclear weapons was a salient factor in the justification of the war.
I agree with you that when we face this situation again we will have to be careful. It will not be a matter of shifting and re-shifting the burden of proof. Let’s say an imaginary country, Zoravia, is a terrorist, tyrannical, state that threatens US national security interests and its neighbors. We know for certain that Zoravia is deeply committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. We know for it is possible that Zoravia is within a few months from obtaining a nuclear weapon. We know that if we invade now, Zoravia cannot hit back very hard. Zoravia is a good candidate for regime change under this doctrine.
It’s particularly important that Zoravia wants to obtain nuclear weapons.
Of course, we can’t always assume that foreign countries are being honest with us. That is why we don’t always agree to interminably discuss the issue politely in the UN. Sometimes, when the chips are down, you have to forget about talking and let your actions speak for you.
November 14th, 2003 at 14:44
With 20/20 hindsight, knowing now that Iraq had not made any steps to develop or obtain nukes, how does your doctrine apply?
November 14th, 2003 at 22:28
First, it should be pointed out that Saddam had not made such steps since Gulf War I, but that he did not take steps to fully dismantle his program afterward. Reports we received in the 1990s confirmed that. Secondly, there was that scientist that had a high-tech centrifuge piece in his backyard.
It is true that when Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced, Saddam was not near to obtaining a nuke.
Now for your actual question.
It was a "pre-emptive" (in fact the word "preventative" is more accurate) action. The idea was to prevent Saddam from getting a nuke. Iraq wanted to obtain a nuke and theoretically had the means. Invading was the only way to create a reasonable assurance that Saddam would not get a nuke. By invading, we prevented Saddam from getting a nuke. That is the doctrine.
November 18th, 2003 at 09:23
The doctrine, then, does not require an honest and open assessment of all intelligence gathered?
When will the tanks start rolling on Uzbeckistan?
May 4th, 2004 at 13:24
The doctrine requires an honest and open approach. I believe that is the approach we have taken in Iraq.
Uzbekistan is a friend of the US.